“Where is ahead?”

"Report to Duke Chu, there are about ten miles to go, and it is Qingyuan Horse Farm." Someone next to him immediately replied: "After passing Qingyuan Horse Farm, you can reach Hezhou City at the current speed in less than two days."

The flags rolled, and Chu Huan led Shuoquan's troops and horses, leaving Shuoquan, and headed west all the way.

"Qingyuan Horse Farm?" Chu Huan looked ahead, thinking.

The Qin Empire had eight horse farms, and three horse farms were occupied in the northwest, of which two horse farms existed on Xiguan Road, but these two horse farms are now in name only.

Originally, the two horse farms in Xiguan were rich in northwest horses and were also an important supply place for the imperial war horses. However, after the Xiliang people entered, Zhu Lingyue took the opportunity to transfer all the war horses in Xiguan Horse Farm. Now there are not many horses in the two horse farms in total, and the facilities of the horse farm were severely damaged after the Xiliang people came.

The damaged horse farm has not been restored yet and is still in a mess, but the grass is long and the birds fly. The horse farm that covers dozens of miles is extremely empty and green.

When the horse farm was established, it was naturally specially selected. As one of the eight horse farms in the empire, Qingyuan Horse Farm is naturally very superior in geographical location.

This place is not only empty and vast, but also near the Qingyuan Horse Farm, there is a large lake called Qingyuan Lake. In fact, the name of Qingyuan Horse Farm is based on the income from this Qingyuan Lake.

The terrain of the horse farm is quite high. When it goes west, it will slant downward. Then the terrain will suddenly rise slowly, forming a horseshoe-like valley. It is about ten miles long and is also green. It is called the Horse Train Valley. Qingyuan Horse Farm is one of the eight major horse farms in the empire. The main purpose of raising horses is to raise the strongest war horses for the empire. Not every horse in the horse farm can become a war horse.

It is necessary to select horses that can become war horses from many horses, which must be assessed and trained. Horse Training Valley is one of the important training grounds. It can not only train the diving ability of a horse, but also test the climbing speed of a horse when facing a slope.

"Send the order and rush to Qingyuan Horse Farm. The whole army rests on the spot and eats dry food. After an hour, continue to set off!"

Although it was almost dusk, after a few days, the entire army tried its best to reinforce Hezhou City. Rescue soldiers were like putting out fires. Even if they marched at night, the soldiers were already accustomed to it.

The military order was passed, and the entire army rushed to Qingyuan Horse Farm as quickly as possible and stayed on the spot.

Chu Huan got off the horse, sat on the ground, took the dry food, but was quite worried about the situation in Hezhou City.

The brave one wins when they meet on a narrow road, and Chu Huan is not lacking in courage. However, this time he fights Zhu Lingyue, he knows that the chance of winning is not very high, but he never gives in his bones. He will never lose confidence without fighting until the last moment.

The soldiers kept quiet, and no one was willing to spend too much effort to speak. On the grassland of the horse farm, the whole army was quiet.

"Report, urgent report..."

A sound of horse hooves sounded, the sun had already set, and two horses appeared in the west, speeding towards the sky. Before the people arrived, the sound had already come from afar.

Chu Huan frowned and stood up. The two quick horses arrived as soon as they said that, and they all flipped off the horses. One of them had already rushed over, knelt in front of Chu Huan, and presented a letter. Chu Huan reached out to take it, took it apart, took a few glances, and then kneaded the letter into a ball and held it in the palm of his hand, asking, "What is the situation in Hezhou City now?"

"Report to the Director Chu, when we set out, the Tianshan Army had not yet attacked the city, and set up camp twenty miles west of the city." The messenger reported.

Chu Huan nodded slightly, Qi Hong and others who followed Chu Huan to fight had already come forward and asked, "Duke Chu, what happened?"

Chu Huan pondered for a moment before saying, "Send the order and stop moving forward, just set up camp at Qingyuan Horse Farm." Without waiting for Qi Hong and others to ask more questions, he had already said to the messenger: "You two will work harder, come back immediately and tell Mr. Pei that our governor will lead his army at Qingyuan Horse Farm!"

Two messengers bowed and retreated.

After the two of them left on horseback, Qi Hongcai wondered: "Duke Chu, don't we continue to march? Then... what should we do if Hezhou City?"

"Mr. Pei wrote to us and we set up camp at Qingyuan Horse Farm." Chu Huan's eyebrows were slightly tightened, "Zhu Lingyue has many soldiers. If we kill directly, I'm afraid that Zhu Lingyue will divide his troops around Hezhou City and block us from rescue Hezhou City. Mr. Pei didn't say much, just said that we would camp at Qingyuan Horse Farm and respond at any time."

"Receive?" Qi Hong was even more confused, "What is Mr. Pei selling in the gourd? What is the explanation for the word "Receive"? Is it that if Hezhou City is in danger, we will go to rescue again, or... Hezhou City cannot resist, and Mr. Pei will lead his troops to break through and let us pick them up here?"

"It should be the latter." Chu Huan thought, "Hezhou City is already in danger. At this time, Mr. Pei asked us to stop moving again, so there should be some arrangements."

"Duke Chu, why didn't Mr. Pei explain his meaning clearly to you?" Qi Hongqi said: "I really want us to wait here?"

Chu Huan was silent for a moment and finally said, "Send scouts to pay attention to the situation in the west at any time. This governor handed over the command of the Hezhou war to Mr. Pei. The strategies and tactics of the Hezhou war will obey Mr. Pei's wishes."

Chu Huan was puzzled by Pei Ji's intentions for a moment, but Pei Ji seemed to know Zhu Lingyue's thoughts very well. The people outside the city rushed to the world to fill the ditches. The defenders watched helplessly, and Pei Ji was calm and unhappy.

According to Pei Ji's intention, Han Ying selected some archers with superb archery skills to shoot arrows at the people several times, but they did not hurt people, but were all shot by the people. At the beginning, the people seemed extremely panicked. They threw down the shovel and hoe in their hands, turned around and ran away. After a while, the generals of the Tianshan Army stopped shooting arrows on the top of the city. The generals of the Tianshan Army seemed to have encouraged the people again. Some brave people approached again, and then the people returned one after another to continue construction. The people shot again at the top of the city and retreated again. So after repeated, the people under the city seemed to see that the defenders were just shooting arrows to scare and scare, and their courage became strong. Later, the arrows were shot, and the people didn't care at all.

Han Ying had no choice, but fortunately Pei Ji said from the beginning that such a small method was nothing more than just to delay the progress of the people.

However, in one day, the first trench outside the west gate of Hezhou City had been filled, and the progress was indeed amazing.

The people worked overtime for the next two days, and the Tianshan Army spent three days looking at the defenders outside the city. The people sweated profusely, while the soldiers of the Tianshan Army were waiting in place, eating and sleeping.

When Han Ying saw this, he had to sigh in his heart that although Zhu Lingyue was ambitious, he was good at training troops. No matter how powerful the Tianshan Army was, at least their discipline was indeed extremely strict.

When the people were about to fill the third trench, the defenders at the city wall knew that the war was about to begin. When the trench was filled, the war began.

At this moment, the Northwest Army, which had been in Fuguiling and had no movement, finally took action. The Northwest Army's flag began to move down from the mountain and towards the north gate of Hezhou City.

The west gate of Hezhou city defense is the main gate, which is guarded by Han Ying, the lord of the city guard, and the north gate is guarded by Xu Shao, commander of the Fengziying, the commander of the Xiguan Imperial Guard.

The Tianshan Army did not make any major moves for three days. When the people were about to fill the last trench, the Tianshan Army began to move. They slowly pushed out dozens of catapults from the military formation and lined up in front of the formation. These catapults were very different from the small catapults on the city wall. They were much larger in size, even if they were equipped with rollers, they would require more than a dozen people to push them.

The Tianshan Army seemed extremely calm, from top to bottom, and seemed very relaxed. Dozens of huge catapults were lined up in front of the formation and slowly prepared for the attack. It seemed that not only wanted to launch catapults to attack the city, but also used dozens of huge catapults to bring pressure and shock to the defenders on the city.

Han Ying knew very well that since Zhu Lingyue had already been prepared to unify the northwest, he naturally had prepared in secret. Not only had he accumulated a large amount of money and food, such as armor, weapons, war horses and siege weapons, he must have prepared early.

When the catapult cart was set up, Gan Hou's Northwest Army had already arrived outside the northern city gate. Compared with the Tianshan Army's siege weapons, the Northwest Army naturally did not have the catapult cart.

Many people know that Zhu Lingyue is elegant and calm in her temperament. Even if she set up a formation to attack the city, she is not rushing. She is slow and after setting up a formation at the west gate, she actually transferred nearly half of the troops and moved to the south gate and the east gate of Hezhou City. In addition to the northwest army at the north gate, the entire Hezhou City was besieged on all sides.

The Gansu-Zhu coalition army was crowded with people. Although the Northwest Army dispatched 5,000 troops to Huichuan for reinforcements, it still had more than 20,000 brave and warlike soldiers. Zhu Lingyue dispatched more than 70,000 troops. Although there were many logistics personnel serving the cavalry troops, the actual combat troops also exceeded 50,000.

Although Chu Huan had already increased troops to Hezhou City before the war, the troops in Xiguan were inferior to Tianshan Mountains. The total strength of Hezhou City was less than 20,000. Fortunately, Hezhou City was not like many big cities in the pass. For example, the capital city Luo'an had ten city gates of all sizes, while Hezhou City had only four city gates. Even so, it had to divide troops to guard the four city gates. The already weak troops had to divide troops to divide troops everywhere. In addition to the main gate on the west, 6,000 troops were arranged, and 2,000 people were drawn as a ranger to reinforce the various gates that were at any time. In fact, the defenders of the other three gates had only about 3,000 people.

Zhu Lingyue was strong and equipped with many siege weapons. He also used the people to easily destroy the trench defense outside the city. With enough troops in his hand, he easily mobilized his troops to siege the two southeast gates. Everything was calm and he was not in a hurry to launch an attack. He seemed to be playing a game of cats and mice slowly.
Chapter completed!